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New York Wineries Face Tastings Gone Wild

Visitors at the Palmer Vineyards in Riverhead.Credit
Doug Kuntz for The New York Times

AQUEBOGUE, N.Y., July 3 — In the 35 years since vines began sprouting out of its sandy soil, the North Fork of Long Island has fought to be recognized as a bona fide wine region, and now more than a million visitors a year visit the tasting rooms at its 30 vineyards to sample award-winning merlots and cabernet francs.

But this season, small signs bearing stern messages — “No Buses,” “No Limos,” “Appointment Only” — have sprouted outside many of the wineries. There also are reports of tastings gone wild involving intoxicated visitors who have tossed back full glasses of wine without regard to nose or body until they grabbed the brass spittoon for baser purposes.

The latest additions to local lore include a story about members of an inebriated group at the Palmer Vineyards here who hopped off a hayride and began gallivanting naked through the vines. Then there were the drunken customers at the Pugliese Vineyards in Cutchogue who jumped into the shimmering lake next to the elegant outdoor tasting area. And the bachelorette parties that often culminate in tabletop dances, to the horror of nearby oenophiles sniffing or sipping the local chardonnays.

“All of a sudden it’s five deep at the bar with people knocking into each other and pushing each other out of the way to get to the tasting,” said Kristen Venasky, 27, who has been pouring for two years at Palmer. “Saturdays,” she said, “are for people who want to get sloshed.”

After managing to overcome the obstacles of new vines, fast-draining soil and fickle climate, the North Fork wineries are now struggling to handle crowds who are looking more for a good time than a good wine, who are interested in quaffing quickly whatever is open without regard to vintage or fermentation.

Feeling the sting of its own success, the nascent wine region is battling an ugly image — one pourer called the scene “slobs and snobs” — that detracts from the charm of the boutique wineries that are just over an hour’s drive from New York City. On any given Saturday, stretch limousines and tour buses jam otherwise bucolic Route 25, which snakes through sleepy towns, sprawling farmland and roadside vegetable stands.

In response to the raucous behavior, more associated with that South Fork bastion known as the Hamptons, almost all of the wineries have ended free tastings and now generally charge $5 for a flight of carefully measured samples. (Palmer is one of the few still pouring without charge, if only for selected wines.) Many tasting rooms have banned bachelorette parties and tightened cutoff policies on serving the inebriated. Raphael vineyards in Peconic has closed its tasting room on Saturdays except by appointment.

The North Fork is not the only wine-producing region in the state to have problems with rowdy tasters who arrive by limousine or bus. In New York — the nation’s third-largest producer of wine grapes, after California and Washington State, according to the United States Commerce Department — wineries in the Finger Lakes region have created the Safe Group Wine Tours Initiative. The program issues warnings to groups that are considered out of control and will bar repeat offenders, according to The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Many wineries in the Napa Valley of California, one of the nation’s largest wine-producing areas, also have adopted a “no limos” policy.

At North Fork wineries, it is common to see security guards and employees in the parking lots turning away limos and buses. The police say they have ratcheted up checkpoints to snare drunken drivers.

The Long Island Wine Council — which has charted the steady growth in visitors to North Fork wineries, to 1.2 million last year, from 940,000 in 2003 and 500,000 in 2000 — recently met with a consortium of local limousine companies to ask for cooperation in controlling their customers.

Jim Ferrarie, president of Long Island Wine Tours, which offers limo and bus service, said he limits itineraries to three vineyards and reminds customers, most of whom are from Nassau County or New York City, that the outings are for learning about wine, not extreme drinking.

“I could take them to six vineyards and get everyone plastered, but my goal is not to have them drink like it’s party town,” said Mr. Ferrarie, whose company has provided transportation for 73 bachelorette events this year. “They ask if the limos are stocked with liquor or if they can bring a cooler of beer on the bus. I tell them, ‘You’re on your way to a winery. This isn’t a moving bar.’ ”

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Many tasters begin drinking before they arrive at their first winery, said Capt. Martin Flatley of the Southold Police Department.

“You get a group coming in from Brooklyn in a limo and they’ve spent an hour and a half indulging on the way out before they even start hitting the wineries,” Captain Flatley said.

One recent Saturday, Rob Ianne, a 22-year-old mortgage broker from Farmingdale, and five friends did the circuit in a stretch limo. “We went to Pindar and Duck Walk and two other places I can’t remember the names of,” Mr. Ianne said. “I don’t know, it’s a good time, something different to do.”

The same day, at Martha Clara Vineyards in Riverhead, a group of six included John Gagliardi, 29, who runs a metal finishing shop in Brooklyn, and Bobby Gerace, 29, a New York City firefighter, who admitted that they preferred beer. “We’re not big wine guys,” Mr. Gerace said. “We came along for the fun of it.”

At the Pugliese Vineyards, known for tastings that overlook an ornamental pond, Pat Pugliese, one of the owners, said drunken tasters end up in the water at least twice a year. “Real wine people,” she said, now avoid weekend afternoons.

“We were one of the last wineries around to have free tastings, but I had to start charging because young people looking for a quick buzz would come in and go right down the list of 21 wines and taste without spending a dime,” Ms. Pugliese said.

Asked about those naked hayriders at Palmer, Ms. Venasky laughed. “They were older people,” she said, “nothing you’d really want to see anyway.”

Even weekdays are not always immune from drunken tasters. Martha Clara promotes “Weekday Madness,” when glasses of white wine sell for $3.50, and reds go for $4. And if the madness gets to be too much, the staff is instructed to adamantly, if diplomatically, cut off tasters who seem beyond tipsy.

“You’ll pour a wine for a guy and he’ll say, ‘What, this is all I get? Fill it up,’ ” said Rudy Bernhardt, a Martha Clara salesman. “I’ll tell him, ‘Sir, this is a wine tasting, not a bar.’ ”

The Long Island Wine Press, a local magazine, has begun printing wine tasting etiquette guidelines and rules of proper behavior, including the need to refrain from putting tips in the wine spittoon.

Do not “shout that something’s disgusting because you don’t happen to like it,” the list says, and “don’t take the three-ounce pours of wine as if they were shots.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: It’s a Tasting, Not a Guzzling, L.I. Wineries Remind Guests. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe